WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US Senate Republicans should be held responsible for lapses in US homeland security and possibly shutting down the US government if a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill is not passed in Congress this week, two Democratic Senators told Sputnik on Tuesday.
“We want to focus on protecting the homeland and… protecting our borders,” Senator Barbara Mikulski told Sputnik. “They [Republicans] want to demonize [US President Barack] Obama and focus on his executive order on immigration.”
New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez asserted that if there were a failure to vote on a DHS spending bill, “Republicans would be responsible for shutting down the government as it relates to homeland at a time of al Qaeda, ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], Ebola, and other national security challenges.”
Fundamentally, there is no disagreement over “the money part” of the $40 billion DHS bill that the US Senate and House of Representatives have already prepared, Mikulski said. “We’ve agreed upon the money,” she said, but added that Republicans “wanted to delay that because of the immigration issue.”
US Senate and House Republicans introduced amendments into the DHS spending bill to defund Obama’s November 2014 immigration executive action, which would provide millions of illegal immigrants temporary relief from deportation.
The inclusion of these amendments has led US Senate Democrats to postpone a vote on a DHS bill containing language relating to Obama’s executive action. Menendez told Sputnik that if a bill does not pass, leading to a partial shutdown of DHS, “that will be their [Republicans’] responsibility.”
In a Tuesday press conference, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid blamed the Republican Party for threatening a repeat of the 2012 government shutdown. “The Republicans shut down the government once, and it appears they’re willing to do it again,” Reid said.
The US Congress has until February 27 to pass a bill or there will be a partial shutdown of the DHS, according to the agency. Critical services will continue at 2014 funding levels, but over 30,000 workers will be furloughed, and others will not receive pay until a spending bill is passed, the DHS has reported.
The DHS is the central agency responsible for ensuring critical security, the US Secret Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, the US Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, and other major security services.
